Open wide zipper pouch extraordinaire

Sometimes I have an idea for a gift and I just have to make it. My dear colleague and friend Ceylan has left our office to pursue her dreams in Istanbul. I knew I wanted to make her something handmade and it was suppose to be something useful, too.

I decided to make Ceylan an open wide zipper pouch in extra big so she can use it as toiletry bag. And since Ceylan loves nail polish, I downsized the free pattern of the nail polish quilt block by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet and made three of them in different shade of pink.

The bag was suppose to be very chic and classy so I went with Robert Kaufmann Essex Yarn Dyed Metallic in beige and that worked so well.

The other side of the bag has her name in the same shades of pink. The letters are hand drawn first and then transferred into fabric. I quilted in simple diagonal straight lines with this beautiful pink of 50wt Aurifil thread. The bag has a great texture!

 The zipper is pink as well and it's such a great contrast to the beige linen fabric.

 The lining fabric is a pink oil cloth so it suits the bag's use and it can be easily cleaned.

This pouch is seriously my masterpiece in form of a bag. I'm not a big fan of zippers but I do like the open wide zipper pouch by Noodlehead and these bags make great gifts. The size is customised though and it's about 15" (38cm) long and 7"(18cm) high.

In total it took me about 10 hours to make the bag and it was done in two days, all after work until the middle of the night.

But it was so worth it! Ceylan absolutely loves it and she said she always thinks of me when she sees the bag, so what is better than that?

That orange zipper

I am going to 'Nadelwelt' (engl.: needle world) this coming weekend, it's the biggest German trade fair that has to do with needles, fabric and yarn. There's going to be quilts on show along other textile things. There's lectures and a big vendor hall.

It's the first time I will be going and I will be meeting with a lot of other quilters and sewists. 

There will be a meet up on Saturday and there's a swap of zipper pouches organised. I made an open wide zipper pouch because they are my favourite zipper pouch to make.

I emptied my turquoise scrap glass and pulled these aqua and light turquoise fabrics and pieced them together and quilted straight lines in light grey.

With all these tone-in-tone colours I thought the pouch needed a bit of a 'bang', so I added a bright orange zipper.

I think this is very suitable and it turned out even better than I had imagined.

For the lining I used some colourful fabric with directional dots that add a bit of a surprise when you open the pouch.

I love those little zipper ends, really finished off the zipper nicely.

So this is going to be for one lucky swap partner. We all put our pouches in a big bag and everyone just picks a pouch randomly. I like that!

I will report back from the actual event when I'm back next week!

Another boxy puch!

I made another boxy pouch! My Mom actually wanted one for Christmas and I gladly made her one.

I had asked her what colours she wanted and she said: 'Uh, I don't know, something with flowers.' Well, the fabrics I used are as far as flowers go in my fabric stash.

My Mom also wants to use the bag as toiletry bag and loved to have oil skin fabric from the inside. That's actually where the colour scheme came from. I selected the oil skin first and then picked colours to match the inside.

The oil skin is a flower fabric as well, so I guess that counts as 'something with flowers'?

I made one large quilted panel and cut it in half and added the zipper. I think it looks really good and my Mom loves it. The tutorial is from Katie Pedersen and you can finds it here. 

Open wide zipper pouch

I just made another open wide zipper pouch. I just love these little projects! It's the middle size of the free pattern by Noodlehead.

A quilt sometimes can feel overwhelming, little projects like this are very satisfying.

Especially if they are a gift to a person, who loves it. That green print by the way is one of my all-time favourites!

This pouch I made for a dear colleague who is off to an adventure in South America, with a backpack and a one way ticket. Since I know how messy a backpack can get I made her that pouch to hopefully avoid any mess!

Boxy Pouch made from scraps

I had a lot of oddly shaped scraps left from my Pantone quilt 'Purple Haze' so I decided to use them straight away. I love that colour combination so much anyway.

I have been admiring these boxy pouches by Katie of SewKatieDid and I thought I have enough scraps to make one pouch. Because you can never have enough pouches!

That were the two panels I made. Mostly all strips were individually pieced with tiny scraps. Not the quickest way to do it but what can you do when you have small but lovely scraps?

And this one is really large! I first made it more squat but didn't like it so I adjusted it to make the shape of the pouch more square and I like it better that way.

While adjusting I also added a second strap, there's one at each end now which makes it easier to handle when zipping and un-zipping the pouch.

This lovely pouch is a great way to use up scraps or, what Katie suggest, using orphan blocks.  I'll definitely make another one!

Linking to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts